Professor Peter Dolan from the University of Minnesota Morris (USA) is currently teaching at Kostanay Regional University (KRU). He lectures on statistics, data analysis, and bioinformatics.
“My trip to Kazakhstan has been amazing,” shared Professor Dolan. “People in Kostanay are incredibly kind. And by the way, I tried beshbarmak for the first time — it’s absolutely delicious!”
His visit has both professional and personal goals. As he put it: a bit of adventure, some practice in Russian, and most importantly — becoming a bridge for the dual-degree program between the two universities.
“When your students come to Morris, they’ll already know someone there. That helps them adapt much faster,” Dolan explained.
When asked what advice he would give to KRU students, his response was truly inspiring:
“Whatever you do, just keep getting better at it, step by step. And of course, make sure you genuinely enjoy what you’re doing.”
Who inspires the professor himself?
“Most of all, my wife. I also try to find something interesting in everything around me. I love learning and sharing knowledge.”
And what do students think? We asked the Computer Science majors — the program that runs under the American dual-degree partnership.
“Professor Dolan is awesome, honestly! His classes are super engaging, and he explains everything so clearly. He’s just a really cool person — easy to talk to and fun to learn from,” the students shared.
This isn’t their first experience with international faculty: earlier, they had lectures from a visiting professor from Korea, Mr. Dan.
As for the Computer Science program itself, the students describe it as anything but boring:
“It’s all about programming — games, websites, programming languages, data structures and information systems. But yes… there’s a lot of math and physics too.”
And here’s a tip for future freshmen:
“Don’t stress too much about physics. Study it, sure, but focus on English! Learn it actively, use it every day — it’ll make studying so much easier.”
The atmosphere after the first lecture was full of energy — both students and the professor were inspired. It seems that some very exciting semesters lie ahead at KRU.
